Those following me on Twitter may have noticed that I’ve been on a road trip from home in southern California to Washington State.

This is a trip that I’ve done many times but – due to my (as of October 10th) lack of a job and the fact that I would be traveling alone – I decided to take a bit of a detour and drive up highway 395 instead of Interstate 5.

What’s funny is that, years ago (when I still lived in Kennewick), I actually lived about a mile from U.S. Route 395. Now – over a thousand miles away in California – I am still only about 20 miles or so from the same highway.

I’ve made this trip before, but this time I decided to do some photography in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains – specifically, Mono Lake and Yosemite National Park. Both are pretty much a straight shot north for me.

My first priority was to get as close as possible to Mono Lake so that I could get started very early in the morning. After a drive of 350 miles or so, I stopped off in Lee Vining, CA for the night. Remarkably, the southernmost stop in my drive was also by far the coldest (below freezing at night – I had to be careful not to slip on ice as I went to and from my room).

Early the next morning, I packed up and left for the lake.

Mono Lake

The view at Mono Lake, as I arrived, was astounding.

Mono Lake is a bit unusual in a few respects. It is a salt water lake with unusually high alkalinity, and for this reason does not contain any native fish species (though it does have, curiously enough, its own species of brine shrimp – sea monkeys!). This is also responsible for the odd “lake foam” that lines the lake’s shore.

Another interesting feature are the tufa towers, formed of calcium carbonate, which rise from the surface of the lake. Combined with the morning fog, these towers feature an otherworldly appearance.

I was only able to photograph a very small area on its western shore – some day, I’d like to return and spend a little more time capturing it from different locations.

After an hour or so, I packed up and left the lake for Yosemite. More on that shortly. In the meantime, you can review more Mono Lake photographs in the Gallery.

As expected, the House passed the revised bail-out Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 bill – after it had been laden with additional pork and other “incentives” – by a wide margin, 263 for and 171 against.

Of course, the actual reasons why so many people opposed the bill – the fact that it rewarded bad behavior on Wall Street, did not address the ridiculous compensation packages given to these firms’ managers and did nothing to stop a continuing wave of home foreclosures – were completely unaddressed.

In every rational sense this is the same bill that was rejected earlier this week.

Needless to say, an ugly bit of political theater was played against the American people this week.

Here’s the final tally of those House members who took part in selling our country out by voting for the bill.

In what was an incredibly narrow vote, the House voted against filling the coffers of irresponsible Wall Street firms to a tune of $700 billion tax-payer provided dollars.

As much as I’d like to celebrate this news, the sad fact is that it’s likely that a slightly amended version of the bill will be put up for a vote later this week. And, by “slightly amended”, I mean a bill that pretty much does the same exact thing – with the sole exception of also enriching a handful of key Congressional districts in some form or fashion.

I do note, however, that my Congress-critter David Dreier (R) from San Dimas voted for the bill. I should also note that he is running for re-election this year.

Update: I sent an email to Russ Warner – Democratic challenger to David Dreier for this election – asking him what his position is on the bail-out. Here’s an article that goes into some detail on the campaign so far.

Some posts on Twitter a few weeks back may have clued some in that something was afoot, but I wasn’t really prepared to make public note of it until now.

After 9 and a half years working at DreamHost, I have decided to leave (effective October 10th). This was due to a handful of reasons, but the long-and-short of it is that this is a long time to work anywhere and I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try something new.

My immediate plan is to go back to school full-time and finish up what I started so long ago (a degree – maybe even two!). Longer term, I have some ideas swirling around in my head and projects that I’ve not had a chance to invest much time on. More on that soon (this is related to the somewhat upbeat post on creative pursuits I made a while back).

It goes without saying that I am going to miss this company. I spent pretty much my entire professional life there, met all sorts of great people (some of whom are reading this weblog right now!) and I’m leaving with a ton of crazy stories to tell.

And – haters be damned – I plan to forever host my stuff here. Makes sense: Through pure luck I managed to end up on a server that almost never goes down.